Fun activity for hiking kids: Leaf Line-up

Which of these leaves would be the tallest? The widest?

Generally, exploring and discovery is enough for kids, but sometimes even they can grow bored with that and become restless. Remember that they naturally have shorter attention spans than adults.

Fortunately, there are lots of tried and true activities you can do on the trail that’ll keep kids from getting bored. Among them is Leaf Line-up, especially if hiking with a group of young children.

Have each child pick one leaf that they see along the trail. At a rest break, have them line up based on different qualities of their leaves: shortest top tallest; thinnest to widest; shortest to tallest stems; least to most leaf points, etc. To make it a competition, score a point for whoever has the tallest, widest, most points, etc.

Materials: Leaves found along trail

Ages: 3 and up

Learn about more than a hundred other hiking diversions for kids in Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities.